Letters: Members of the Faculty of Hamline University
January 16, 2023
Dear Hamline Students,
We want you to know that in the midst of the current media tempest, our thoughts are with you.
We support students.
We also support academic freedom.
Our mission as educators demands both.
We see and hear what many students who are Muslim have shared at the fall forum and in other spaces. Islamophobia in our country and our state impacts many of you and all of our communities every day. Incidents on this campus have exacerbated that pain and anxiety. We understand that in these contexts we have a duty as educators to stand against marginalization and disrespect, to design and teach our curricula to ensure inclusivity.
The public debate is often being cast as if we must work for academic freedom or for religious and cultural sensitivity, and that characterization is wrong and destructive. These aren’t opposites. Classroom situations are sometimes complicated, and it can be difficult to work through our responsibility to be both supportive and challenging, to align what we teach, how we teach and who we each and all are. But we intend to keep working through these complications with care and collective effort, owning up to mistakes — and working through our disagreements — with our eyes always on our shared purpose and academic mission of learning, and always seeking to do better, together.
Media accounts rarely capture such complexities, and the institutional response in the face of confused public reports may amplify the confusion. We want you to know that we are fully committed to listening to and working with you to keep refining and improving the educational experience for all students, even while our classrooms may sometimes be challenging — even uncomfortable — spaces.
This letter is insufficient to address all concerns — we commit to further, ongoing work together.
Thank you for speaking up. Thank you for listening. Thank you for all you do to engage with and shape learning at Hamline. We are excited to see all of you in our classes.
Sincerely,
Alina Oxendine, Allison Baker, Andy Rundquist, Angela Pelster-Wiebe, Beth Gunderson, Betsy Martínez-Vaz, Binnur Ozkececi-Taner, Bonnie Ploger, Brian Hoffman, Bridget Jacques-Fricke, Calee Cecconi, Catheryn Jennings, David Davies, David Schultz, Davu Seru, Erik Asp, Irina Makarevitch, Janet Greene, Jasper Weinburd, Jeff Turner, Jen England, Jennifer Carlson, Jerry Artz, Jodi Goldberg, Joe Lewis, Joe Swenson, Kaori Kenmotsu, Kate Bjork, Kathryn Geurts, Kathy Burleson, Katrina Vandenberg, Ken Fox, Kris Deffenbacher, Kris Norman, Laura Dougherty, Leif Hembre, Leondra Hanson, Linnette Werner, Lisa Nordeen, Lisa Stegall, Máel Embser-Herbert, Marcela Kostihová, Marceleen Mosher, María Jésus Leal, Mark Berkson, Mike Reynolds, Nick Schlotter, Paul Bogard, Peggy Andrews, Rachel Tofteland-Trampe, Rebecca Neal, Richard Pelster-Wiebe, Ryan Larson, Sam Imbo, Sarah Hick, Shannon Cannella, Sharon Preves, Sheila O’Connor, Sofía Pacheco-Forés, Sonal Gerten, Stephen Kellert, Suda Ishida, Susi Keefe, Susie Steinbach, Trevor Maine, Zhenqing Zhang
An adjunct • Jan 19, 2023 at 6:49 pm
Hamline projects a strong identity as a school that cares about social justice, for its students and in the wider world. But as we have seen it doesn’t extend the same protections to adjunct faculty that it does to permanent faculty. They have the same credentials. They’re hired to do the same work (though not at the same pay) teaching alongside permanent faculty. So obviously the school thinks they’re good enough for its students. Then how is the way Hamline treats them compatible with its social justice mission? What does it mean that this mission is built on cheaper exploitable disposable labor? The previous commenters are right that this faculty letter does not really address the point underlying the controversy about the administration’s actions. We would not be having this conversation if Dr. López Prater were not an adjunct, because the administration would not have been able to cast her aside if she had not been an adjunct. And Dr. López Prater has said that she was ready to move on. We also wouldn’t even be having this conversation if the administration had not wanted to trumpet what they did as a remedy to the student’s complaint, because no one would be the wiser. They can say what they want about protecting or respecting the faculty and the students, but will anyone with influence or power here call for any material change in the way the university is staffed to serve its social justice mission? Some enjoy more freedom than others and the university’s operation depends on everyone’s forgetting it.
George Wesley • Jan 19, 2023 at 10:31 pm
Yes. Spend 5 minutes on Google and you can learn that the “controversial” image is not Islamophobic. Spend another 15 minutes on Google and one may enjoy a wealth of beautiful Islamic art and learn that the image in question was actually Islamophilic. Thus, the issue never really was academic freedom after all. Some of the true issues are: 1) the manner in which Dr. Lopez Prater was treated. She was all but perp-walked off the HU campus; 2) Why it took HU 4 months to learn AND publicly acknowledge that the questioned image was not Islamophobic; 3) Since when do students make up curricula and its determine its materials?; 4) Given that this is a faculty letter, why is there no support for Dr. Lopez Prater expressed — we know the letter is to HU’s students, but how about displaying a little grace? And so much more. I’m sure HU didn’t ask for this nightmare, but the more it obfuscates, the more this will become an existential issue for the school.
George Wesley, M.D. • Jan 18, 2023 at 8:29 pm
I find this letter objectionable in that it attempts to gaslight and obfuscate. To wit: “The public debate is often being cast as if we must work for academic freedom or for religious and cultural sensitivity, and that characterization is wrong and destructive.” In fact, far more so, the real public debate is about how a faculty member of the Hamline University community was shunned, ostracized, and denied due process, the latter being the cornerstone of any fair and progressive society.
Gabrielle Rose Simons, MALS (Hamline, 2011; former adjunct faculty member at Hamline) • Jan 19, 2023 at 12:58 pm
Thank you for your poignant observation. If I might further refine the point, this castigation happened to an adjunct faculty member, a class of instructors far more likely to be denied due process. Tenured and tenure-line faculty should take heed, as “academic freedom is weakened when a majority of the faculty lack the protections of tenure” (AAUP). When one considers that, according to the AAUP, over 70% of higher education faculty in the U.S. are contingent, full-time faculty should rally on behalf of the majority faculty if they are interested in upholding academic freedom and academic integrity.